Official CBB MarchMadness Tourney 2025 Brackets

Hill · March 18, 2025, 12:51am

Exactly how I see it. Fanta seems like a genuinely good dude who loves CBB. Love his passion. TO is a turd, but stinks slightly less than Goodman.

pesik · March 18, 2025, 12:55am

this one by ESPN’s more analytics guys … its more chalky, picking who is supposed to win… but they give a ton of data back insights

to make @Hill more nervous.
they note Gonzaga is the most under-seeded team in history, since they introduced advanced analytics … the hardest 1 vs 8 matchup likely ever based on data… but they do think we are just better and will win… but note how realistic an upset is… and jwan has to bring his A game…

one of them picks Tennessee to the final 4 over us… said he actually thinks we would beat Tennessee in a game… but Tennessee has an easier path to the game because of the zags, just picked on odds

Cougardue · March 18, 2025, 1:13am

So Zaga is a lock to beat Georgia?

UHRedCat · March 18, 2025, 1:58am

I hope the Zags think like that.

I also hope we concentrate on the 1st game and worry about the round of 32 after we advance.

olutrain · March 18, 2025, 2:04am

Who is the “we” you’re talking about?

pesik · March 18, 2025, 2:04am

“Lock” is a strong word… It’s the tournament, and neither team is a Cinderella. The gap isn’t THAT huge.

But for me, I’d consider it a big upset if Georgia wins. Georgia is turnover-prone and is facing one of the most organized teams in the nation.

The difference between this Gonzaga team and past teams, in my opinion, is that their three-point shooting is slightly worse. The key to beating them is slowing them down and forcing them into a half-court game. I don’t think Georgia is capable of that. They’ve played a few fast-paced teams and just matched those teams’ fast tempo. I think the Zags will get a lot of transition points, and the pace will negate Georgia’s physicality and size.

The pro-Georgia folks I’ve heard from say that Silas Dimary has been on a tear lately. (His season average is 13 PPG, but he’s been close to a 20 PPG scorer over the last month.) They argue that the Zags have no one to stop him. My counter to that is: Do they need to? The winner of this game is likely to score in the 80s. Silas and Powell combining for 44 points is fine, but Georgia is too turnover-prone and not organized enough to keep up with the total the Zags will put up.

One thing I find really interesting is the perspective on this game. I posted two videos showing two drastically different viewpoints:

The “Who have you beaten?” folks who love Georgia. They point out that the Zags haven’t beaten anyone truly elite, while Georgia has. They argue that Georgia is battle-tested and has physicality on their side. That the zags lack.
The analytics folks who LOVE Gonzaga. The data doesn’t see this game as close at all. Most computer models have this as the equivalent of a 2/3 seed vs. a 9 seed. The Zags have blown out most of their opponents, and every loss came down to the wire. They have the #1 assist rate, an elite low turnover rate, etc.

Side note: The “battle-tested” argument makes no sense to me. Most of Gonzaga’s roster consists of seniors, and the majority of their rotation were key players in their Sweet 16 run just last year (only swapped out 2 players). This is Ike’s and Nembhard’s third NCAA Tournament run, all of which reached at least the Sweet 16. Meanwhile, four of Georgia’s five starters are sophomores or younger, and their star player is a freshman. Only one player on their roster has ever been to the NCAA Tournament—and that was as a deep bench player at Clemson last year. Does losing more SEC games really make you more battle-tested?